Our life in Texas

Hello Family and Friends,

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! We are doing great and loving Austin! Here are some highlights from the past few months...

Black's BBQ...about a week or two ago Michael and I went down to Lockhart with our friends to try some delicious Texas BBQ. Lockhart is the BBQ capitol of Texas, at least that's what I have been told, anyways we decided to eat at Black's BBQ. It was so DELICIOUS! The meat was so tender and full of flavor. They also had a ton of sides to choose from. It was awesome. We are definitely going to go back soon.

Michael won a competition at work this past week. He had to email in an idea for a project using an arduino, and he won. So he is going to be working on that project now. We will post pictures when he finishes it.

I have been working on different crafts lately. I have sewn a skirt, blanket and burp clothe so far. I have also crocheted a few hats and an afghan. It's been a lot of fun. I am also learning how French braid my hair. I know this is something that I should learned long ago but I never got around to it.

Lily is doing great. Her vocabulary is increasing all the time. My favorite is when she says "eye" and then points to her ear. I keep trying to teach her that her ear is her ear and her eye is her eye. However, she insists on calling her ear her eye. Oh well. Hopefully she will figure it out someday. She has also learned how to climb up and down stairs! Yay.

Lily and I have also loved going to the park lately. The weather here is so awesome. Anyways, Lily loves playing at the park. She loves sliding down the slides. She still hasn't figured out that she needs to sit before she goes down the slide but we're working on that. I think she'll get it soon.

Well that's all for now. I will post pictures later.

Bye.

Christmas Day

This was our first Christmas alone as a family. It was a lot of fun. We missed our families but had fun celebrating the holidays as a little family. On Christmas Eve we had dinner with some friends in the ward. It was a lot of fun. We then read the Christmas story from the bible and "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." On Christmas day we opened presents, ate candy and other yummy food. We got to talk to my parents on skype. We also talked to Michael's parents and family on google. It was neat being able to talk with our families. Hope you enjoy the pictures from Christmas morning.

Christmas Vacation

Lily playing with the Christmas Tree
Collecting rocksLily enjoying the hike with the rocks she collected
The beautiful view
Santa, Darcy and Lily

This Christmas was a ton of fun! Lily met Santa for the first time. She's not a big fan yet. Lily also loves the Christmas tree. Her favorite thing to do has been to climb up on the presents so that she can reach the tree better.

We also went for a hike as a family. Well actually we went up some stairs so see the view from the highest point in Austin, Mount Bonnell. It reaches an amazing 775 feet! Pretty amazing I know. Anyways you go up these stairs and look out at the lake. It was a beautiful view. After that we walked around on the trails at the top. Lily enjoyed herself by collecting as many rocks as possible. She loves rocks! However, we ended up taking all the rocks away from her because she started trying to eat them. Crazy girl. It was nice getting out and spending time together as a family.

Lily's pictures again

Here is the last Picture

Lily's picture's

oops forgot one.

Here are the pictures we had taken of Lily to celebrate her birthday.

Hello World

Michael and I have decided to join the blogging world! I know pretty exciting! Now we will have to start doing stuff so that we can blog about it. Right now we are excited for Christmas. This will be our first Christmas away from our families. We are both sad about not being able to celebrate the holidays with our families. However, we are also excited to celebrate Christmas as our own little family! We are extra excited about not having to deal with the snow! We are enjoying the nice Texas weather.

Michael has 3 days off of work for the holidays. I wanted to go do a bunch of stuff as a family, like hiking, but I'm sick. So hopefully I will be over this cold by Christmas. Being sick is awful. I have no idea why I thought it was fun when I was little.

This past weekend Michael and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary. I can't believe we have been married that long. To celebrate Michael took me on a date to the movies. We saw "You Again" it was a really funny movie! Then on Friday we went out to eat at Carrabba's Italian Grill as a family. Despite my efforts to get Lily to eat a well balanced meal she ate mostly bread. Then after dinner we went on a carriage ride at the Domain. It was a lot of fun and it was neat to see all of the Christmas Lights. It was a wonderful anniversary.